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‘The Golden Bird’, a story from the Grimm
collection, became my secondmodel for the strategic pair of
moves. Originally, the story attracted my attention because the
hero’s triumphant exploits with the fox are suddenly followed by the
fox’s request to be killed and mutilated. This is explained in the
story by his being a prince changed into a fox, but the alteration
in pace and mood of the story invited investigation. The plot turned
out to have a structure I have frequently found in medieval texts.
Like the Horn plot it has a pair of moves using a surrogate
situation and then the exact one, but it places them both together
at the end, after the hero’s expedition organised by the fox which
gains him the golden bird, the golden horse and the princess. This
is a plot where the winning comes first, followed by moves to deal
with guilt.

The Ritual Plot in ‘The Golden Bird’

Outline of the Narrative

The Moves

1.

A
gardener’s son sees the golden bird stealing the golden
apples from the king’s garden. His elder brothers, who
also keep watch, fail to see it. When he shows the king
a feather from the bird, the king wants the bird.

Move 1

The hero
has a vision of a golden thief in a king’s garden.

STEP 1

2.

The elder
brothers also fail to search for the bird, even though a
fox gives advice. But the youngest son listens to the
fox and rides off to find the bird, sitting on the fox’s
tail. He has an adventure organised by the fox in which
he passes from king to king, failing to steal the golden
bird but being promised the bird if he brings the king
the golden horse, and then failing to steal the horse
but being promised it if he brings the beautiful
princess. He fails to steal the princess but is promised
her if he removes a huge hill blocking the king’s view
and the fox accomplishes this for him. Then returning to
the king who asked for the princess, he delivers her and
receives the horse, and then manages to take the
princess too before galloping off. Finally, arriving to
exchange the horse for the bird, he tricks that king out
of both too.

Move 2

The hero
steals sovereignty from the king figure, in a swift,
flowing act of trickery, riding on the craft of a fox.
The princess represents sovereignty.

STEP 2

3.

The fox
says suddenly, ‘Pray kill me, and cut off my head and my
feet’. The young man refuses to do so, and the fox
advises him to ransom no one from the gallows and to sit
by no river. The young man rides on with the princess
and comes upon his two brothers, who are about to be
hanged for theft. He buys their liberty, and then sits
down by a river where the brothers can throw him down
the bank and steal all his winnings. The fox arrives and
pulls him out of the river, and the young man returns to
the king his master to tell him what has happened. The
brothers are seized and punished and the young man has
the princess returned to him. After the king’s death he
becomes heir to the kingdom.

Move 3

The first
of a pair of moves for the removal of guilt.

The device
used is ritual punishment.

The need
for punishment is abruptly introduced by the fox, which
represents the crime, but the hero’s two brothers are
set up as the thieves, stealing the winnings, and are
punished instead. The king gives the princess to the
hero, and the hero becomes his heir.

RITUAL
PUNISHMENT FOR THEFT USING

SURROGATES

STEP 3

4.

A long
while after, the young man goes for a walk in the woods
and meets the fox, who begs him with tears in his eyes
to kill him and cut off his head and his feet. At last
he does so and the fox turns out to be the brother of
the princess.

Move 4

The ritual
punishment requested by the fox is now performed and it
brings about the happy ending.

RITUAL
PUNISHMENT FOR THEFT USING THE

FOX, WHO
REPRESENTS THE ACTUAL CRIME

These last scenes might seem to have nothing to
do with those leading up to the gaining of the golden bird, the
horse and the princess, but they are about punishment. The fox asks
to be killed and mutilated and this initiates the two-fold action
commonly found in these plots. First, the brothers are condemned as
the thieves, while the king gives the hero the stolen princess,
making him his heir. Then, finally, the fox repeats his request to
be killed and mutilated, and the hero consents, bringing about a
happy ending.

I see these last scenes as two moves
dealing with the guilt in the plot, both using ritual punishment.
Like Moves 3 and 6 in the King Horn plot, they relate to each other
as steps to a solution, the first using surrogates (the brothers,
set up by the narrative as thieves while the hero is good) and the
second using the fox, which organised the hero’s exploits in the
narrative and represents his thefts. The hero represents anyone
identified with the plot.